John Cleese takes us on a tour of a laughter therapy practice in India.
Laughter promotes stress reduction, community bonding, stronger immune system... and joy. What a simple solution!
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Expect expansion in other industries focusing on an aging Boomer population.
A CNBC.com article identifies healthcare: an aging generation needs more medical care for diseases and disabilities related to aging. But the article doesn't address the rapidly growing developments in "age management" industries.
American Bird watchers coast to coast are invited
to take part in the 13th annual Great Backyard Bird Count, Friday,
February 12, through Monday, February 15, 2010. Participants in
the free event will join tens of thousands of volunteers counting
birds in their own backyards, local parks or wildlife
refuges.
Each checklist submitted by these "citizen scientists" helps
researchers at the Cornell Lab
of Ornithology,the National
Audubon Society , and Bird
Studies Canada learn more about how the birds are doing--and how to
protect them. Last year, participants turned in more than 93,600
checklists online, creating the continent's largest instantaneous
snapshot of bird populations ever recorded.
Anyone can take part in the Great Backyard Bird Count,
from novice bird watchers to experts.
Participants count birds for as
little as 15 minutes (or as long as they wish) on one or more days of
the event and report their sightings online at www.birdcount.org. One 2009
participant said, "Thank you for the opportunity to participate in
citizen science. I have had my eyes opened to a whole new interest and
I love it!"
Winter is such a vulnerable period for birds, so winter
bird distributions are likely to be very sensitive to change.
There is
only one way--citizen science--to gather data on private lands where
people live and GBBC has been doing this across the continent for many
years.
GBBC has enormous potential both as an early warning system and
in capturing and engaging people in more intensive sampling of birds
across the landscape."
Bird populations are always shifting and changing.
For example, 2009 GBBC data highlighted a huge southern invasion of Pine Siskins across much of the eastern United States. Participants counted 279,469 Pine Siskins on 18,528 checklists, as compared to the previous high of 38,977 birds on 4,069 checklists in 2005. Failure of seed crops farther north caused the siskins to move south to find their favorite food.
Bird Count Website
On the www.birdcount.org website, participants can explore real-time maps and charts that show what others are reporting during the count. The site has tips to help identify birds and special materials for educators. Participants may also enter the GBBC photo contest by uploading images taken during the count. Many images will be featured in the GBBC website's photo gallery. All participants are entered in a drawing for prizes that include bird feeders, binoculars, books, CDs, and many other great birding products.
Canadian Bird Studies Birdcount
In 2010, Bird Studies Canada
(BSC) joins the GBBC as the program's Canadian partner. "Bird Studies
Canada is delighted to be the Canadian partner for this extremely
valuable program," said George Finney, President of BSC. "Participating
in the GBBC is an excellent way for Canadians to reconnect with their
love of nature and birds."
For more information about the GBBC, visit the website at www.birdcount.org.
People with relatively extreme opinions may be more willing to publicly share their views than those with more moderate views, according to a new study.
The key is that the extremists have to believe that more people share their views than actually do, the research found.
Social and Political Repercussions
The results may offer one possible explanation for our fractured political climate in the United States, where extreme liberal and conservative opinions often seem to dominate.
"When people with extreme views have this false sense that they are in the majority, they are more willing to express themselves," said Kimberly Rios Morrison, co-author of the study and assistant professor of communication at Ohio State University.
Group Dynamics on Viewpoints
How do people with extreme views believe they are in the majority? This can happen in groups that tend to lean moderately in one direction on an issue. Those that take the extreme version of their group's viewpoint may believe that they actually represent the true views of their group, Morrison said.
One example is views about alcohol use among college students.
In a series of studies, Morrison and her co-author found that college students who were extremely pro-alcohol were more likely to express their opinions than others, even though most students surveyed were moderate in their views about alcohol use.
"Students who were stridently pro-alcohol tended to think that their opinion was much more popular than it actually was," she said. "They seemed to buy into the stereotype that college students are very comfortable with alcohol use."
The average student's views were near the mid-point of the scale -- but most rated the typical Stanford student as more pro-alcohol than themselves.
"There's this stereotype that college students are very pro-alcohol, and even most college students believe it," Morrison said. "Most students think of themselves as less pro-alcohol than average."
Morrison conducted this study with Dale Miller of Stanford University. Their research appeared in a recent issue of the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.
In the next two studies, students again rated themselves on similar scales that revealed how pro-alcohol they were. They were then asked how willing they would be to discuss their views on alcohol use with other Stanford students.
Change Advocacy?
In general, students who were the most pro-alcohol were the most likely to say they wanted to express their views, compared to those with moderate or anti-alcohol views.
However, in one study the researchers added a twist: they gave participants fake data which indicated that other Stanford students held relatively conservative, anti-alcohol views.
Willing to Stick Your Neck Out?
When extremely pro-alcohol students viewed this data, they were less likely to say they were willing to discuss alcohol usage with their fellow students.
"It is only when they have this sense that they are in the majority that extremely pro-alcohol students are more willing to express their views on the issue," Morrison said.
However, students who had more extreme anti-alcohol views were not more likely to want to express their views, even when they saw the data that suggested a majority of their fellow students agreed with them.
"Their views that they are in the minority may be so deeply entrenched that it is difficult to change just based on our one experiment," she said. "In addition, they don't have the experience expressing their opinions on the subject like the pro-alcohol extremists do, so they may not feel as comfortable."
Extreme Versions of the Group's Actual Views
This finding shows that not all extremists are more willing to share their opinions - only those who hold more extreme versions of the group's actual views.
These results have implications for how Americans view the political opinions of their communities and their political parties, Morrison said.
Take as an example a community that tends to be moderate politically, but leans slightly liberal.
People with more extreme liberal views in the community may be more likely than others to attend publicly visible protests and display bumper stickers espousing their liberal views, because they think the community supports them.
"Everyone else sees these extreme opinions being expressed on a regular basis and they may eventually come to believe their community is more liberal than it actually is," Morrison said. "The same process could occur in moderately conservative communities.
The Social Change Process
"You have a cycle that feeds on itself: the more you hear these extremists expressing their opinions, the more you are going to believe that those extreme beliefs are normal for your community."
A similar process may occur in groups such as political parties. Moderately conservative people who belong to the Republican Party, for example, may believe that people with extremely conservative views represent their party, because those are the opinions they hear most often. However, that may not be true.
The Silent Majority...the Vocal Minority
Morrison said when she and her colleagues were thinking about doing this study, they had in mind the phrase about the "silent majority" in the United States, which was popularized by President Richard Nixon and his vice-president, Spiro Agnew. They referred to the silent majority as the people who supported the war in Vietnam, but who were overshadowed by the "vocal minority" against the war.
While there may not be one monolithic silent majority in the United States, Morrison said this study suggests that the minority may indeed be more vocal in some cases.
Source: Newswise
Violence between couples is usually the result of a calculated decision-making process and the partner inflicting violence will do so only as long as the price to be paid is not too high.
In
this new study, carried out at the University of Haifa's School of
Social Work, Dr. Perkis examined intimate violence based on the fact
that in most cases the offending partner is a law-abiding individual
living a normative life outside of the family unit. Dr. Perkis says
that in most cases the couple continues living together and sustaining
a shared family unit, so it is important that we learn to understand
the dynamics of such partnerships in order to treat them.
Family Dynamics of Intimate Violence
First
Dr. Perkis divided intimate violence into four levels of severity:
Verbal Violence Escalates
"These four levels follow
one another in an escalating sequence; someone who uses verbal violence
might well move on over time to threatening physical attack, and from
there it is only downhill towards acting on the threat," she explains.
Dr. Perkis warns however, that the results of this study should not be
correlated to cases of murder, since the dynamics between couples in
such cases are different and such offenses are not included in the
chain of violent acts being examined.
Solving Conflicts
The researcher found that acting on each type of violence is calculated, such that the violence constitutes a tool for solving conflict between the partners.
"Neither
of the couple sits down and plans when he or she will swear or lash out
at the other, but there is a sort of silent agreement standing between
the two on what limits of violent behavior are 'ok', where the red line
is drawn, and where behavior beyond that could be dangerous," she
explains.
She adds that when speaking of one-sided physical violence, most often carried out by men, the violent side understands that for a slap, say, he will not pay a very heavy price, but for harsher violence that is not included in the 'normative' dynamic between them, he might well have to pay a higher price and will therefore keep himself from such behavior.
Leaving or Reporting the Incident...Is a Heavy Price to Pay!
"A 'heavy price' could be the partner's leaving or reporting the incident to the police or the workplace. As such, it can be said that violent behavior is not the result of loss of control and both sides are aware of where the red line is drawn, even if such an agreement has never been spoken between them," she says.
Better Tools for Solving Conflict
According to Dr. Perkis, it is important to point out that use of violence is not a normative behavior; it is illegal, and of course, immoral. Therefore, it is only the violent partner who is culpable for the act. Nevertheless, once we understand that violence is being used as a tool for solving conflict between a couple that is interested in staying together, we can help them subdue such behavior by providing them with better tools to cope with the source of tension and conflict in their lives together.
"In couples therapy for partners who express the
wish to stay together, therapy must be focused on identifying
illegitimate motives, such as nonnormative tactics for solving
conflict, and assisting the couple in acknowledging their ability to
convert destructive patterns into effective ones and ultimately to run
their lives better," the researcher concludes.
Solutions:
"A Cooperative Solution," by the NAHC legislative committee
Established
in 1960, NAHC and its 10 regional associations provide education,
inspiration and service to housing cooperatives with well over a
million families. NAHC's Board of Directors at its September 2008
meeting unanimously supported a cooperative approach to affordable
housing ownership and preservation of individually owned houses faced
with foreclosures.
Our genes determine only 30% of our destiny!A decade after the book was published, other studies have confirmed and advanced those findings.
The other 70 percent is up to us!
Kahn sees too little about why people are living longer and what longer life means, he adds. "Or what a longer and productive and happy life can be."
IDEAS: crossword puzzles and Sudoko and software such as [m]Power cognitive fitness technology
6 Dimensions of Wellness
- physical
- emotional
- intellectual
- social
- vocational
- spiritual